Oh Right, I Knew That

The universe has been giving me plenty of writing material in the joke’s-on-me category. This time it’s about developing a website and working on a new book project. 

For years I have quietly cruised along on my little blog, happy to use Blogger, grateful for all those who have subscribed by email. Then recently Blogger announced that after July they would no longer support the email subscribers on Feedburner. I don’t even know what all that means, but I knew I needed tech help. That led to deciding to have my own website and some other changes, all of which will be happening in the next month or two. (I will give everyone plenty of notice and we will figure out how to ease the transition for all you beloved email subscribers.)

Meanwhile, I have been preparing to publish a new book (more on that later as well), which involves various tasks to appeal (hopefully) to a publisher. 

All of this has taken me way out of my comfort zone, and while I’m excited about these new developments, I have also been resistant and grumpy about having to, no, choosing to, change the way I’ve been doing things, including taking some steps to promote myself and my writing. This definitely does not feel like “the way of no way.” On the contrary, it feels like an unwelcome distraction from my “practice.” Which is what, exactly? Yes, I meditate, and practice martial arts, and write, and facilitate a contemplation group, but what is the point of any of that? (Yes, I know some folks will say there is no point to any of that, and that that is the point.) 

We spent a lot of time in recent months talking in the contemplation group about expanding our “sphere” to include everything that arises within our experience and awareness. Everything. Exclude nothing. And to recognize that when we are struggling, we are out of alignment, we are fighting against reality, we are in conflict with ourselves. We talk about softening the struggle by touching everything with compassion, and releasing our attachment and rejection so that we can live in harmony with the universe. That includes the universe of our choices. 

Busted, right? What is the point of any practice that I engage in or write about if not to integrate body, mind, and soul into the rhythm of creation, to open the heart of compassion to embrace everything, to notice and ease any struggle with reality, to lean into fear rather than try to escape it, to awaken to our true nature and live fully in each precious moment? And if a few of those precious moments involve a little discomfort over learning some new technology and changing the way I do some things, then my practice is to expand my sphere to include this too. This too. 

So I’m having a pretty good laugh at myself. Again. Here I am with my knickers in a knot, struggling over the very things I’ve chosen to do in order to share with others the practice that has so enriched my life by teaching me how not to struggle. Yeah, people are complicated. And funny. 

You are welcome to share a laugh with me. And I hope you will be patient as I wade through these coming transitions. 

It takes more than just awareness for us to change. It takes courage and humility and the willingness to occasionally feel like fools and laugh at ourselves. ~Bud Harris

Emotional Hoarding

The price of staying awake is giving up every reason you have to stop loving. ~Adyashanti

Do you know anyone who is a hoarder? I do. When I walk into her apartment, there are piles of newspapers and magazines everywhere. Boxes of unknown contents are stacked along the walls. Every surface is crowded with deals too good to pass up. There is little room to move, no space to cook or eat, and only one little corner of the couch available where she can sit and watch TV. Visitors are not allowed beyond the front room, so I don’t know where she sleeps. The apartment is impossible to clean. She acknowledges the negative impact on her life and even worries that there is so much weight in the apartment that the floor might collapse. She is miserable.

And yet she cannot let any of it go, even though she knows that her life would be so much better if she could. What is the nature of such an attachment that is so strong that the price of giving it up in order to have a healthier, more balanced, happier life is just too high?* 

Some of us might think that such an attachment is beyond our understanding. But what if we are told, as Adyashanti said, that the price of living an awakened life is giving up every reason we have to stop loving? Every judgment, every resentment, every hurt feeling, every unforgiving thought, every irritation, every criticism, every “othering”? What if we are told that all of these reasons, no matter how justified, keep us locked in an emotional state of suffering? And that giving them up, all of them, without exception, will free us to live a more integrated, harmonious, healthier, happier, awakened life?

Can we understand attachment a little better now? I know I can. 

Most of us, if we’re honest, can discover, if not an emotional apartment full of clutter, at least an emotional junk drawer we haven’t cleaned out in time beyond memory. We might not even know what is in it anymore. When we look, we might be able to toss some things, but there will be that one little thing that we hold in our hand with hesitation. “You never know when I might need that,” we think. 

Or there might be the emotional treasure that is displayed a place of honor on the mantel. Such a spot is often reserved for the big unforgiveness attachments we never forget – parents who let us down, lovers who left us, friends who betrayed us. Who can argue with those reasons to stop loving? No one. 

That’s the point, isn’t it? I can justify every reason I have to stop loving. I can hold onto it in perfect righteousness. And I can wear my resultant suffering like a cloak of justice. A heavy cloak that drags with the weight of accumulated wrongs I can’t let go of. 

So why can’t we just unfasten that cloak and leave it in the dirt? Do we hold on because of some fear of what will happen if we let it go? Would we feel grief or vulnerability? Or perhaps, if we look closely, we might admit there is some pleasure in sitting in judgment, in fantasizing revenge, in attracting sympathy for our injury.  

Whatever our reason, we will hold onto it until we want freedom more than we want to suffer. Because until we are willing to forego the secret delight of withholding love, we will be as trapped by our emotional hoarding as my friend is in her apartment. 

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ~Matthew 6:21

*I understand that hoarding can be a mental health issue that isn’t as simple as just making a choice. I use the example of hoarding here only as a metaphor for holding onto emotional attachments that do not serve our well being. 

Living in a Goal Free Zone

Western culture, at least in the United States, is very goal oriented. We make new year resolutions. We have five year business and personal plans. My sons, who both have autism, have a meeting every year to set goals for the year with measurable checkpoints during the year. In fact, for many of us, our lives are structured that way, with large and small identified goals and measurable steps. We set goals, work towards our goals, achieve our goals, and bask in the success of having met our goals. At least for a moment until we set new goals and start the process again. 

Goals are associated with progress, accomplishment, hard work, even good character. They are encouraged, and those who set them and achieve them are admired. I doubt that Olympic athletes, for example, would ever get a medal without some single minded focus and dedication. 

There is nothing wrong with that. Goals serve a purpose. But when we have blinders on that allow us to see only the goal oriented path ahead, I wonder what opportunities we miss. Some of the best things that have happened in my life were not on my goal trajectory. In fact, more often than not, they completely derailed my goal progress. 

For example, when I moved to Portland, I had a very specific job goal in mind. I began to search out the leads that would take me in that direction. When someone mentioned a temporary job opportunity that was not goal related, I almost dismissed it. Then I decided I would take that job to provide some income while I looked for the job I really wanted. The first day of the temporary job, I went home amazed that someone was paying me to have so much fun. When the time was up, I figuratively chained myself to the gate until they decided to keep me. Twenty years later, I retired from a job that continued to be fun and deeply rewarding. 

On the personal front, I was living a full and busy life as a single parent with two kids. I had all I could handle, or so I thought. My goals targeted balancing home and work while meeting the needs of my autistic son and making sure that my daughter had her needs met as well. My goals definitely did not include more kids. And yet, suddenly there was my son’s classmate, also autistic, who, for reasons beyond the scope of this post, was in crisis and needed a family to care for him. So, for reasons beyond the scope of any rational explanation, I took him. And his presence has now blessed our family for more than twenty years in ways I never could have planned or anticipated. 

Those are “big” life examples, but similar things happen to us all the time in big and small ways. At some point I realized that when I was not focused on goals, things that needed to get done still did, in a more natural, organic way rather than forced. I began to trust that life would lead me, and that when I was aligned in harmony with an open, receptive attitude, my path forward would become clear. And if it didn’t, then I knew to wait until it did. 

When people ask me these days what my goals are, I have a hard time coming up with any. It seems to me that they get in the way more than provide helpful direction. Sure, I make plans. I go to the store with a list in hand, and my calendar has appointments to attend. I am respectful of people’s time and do my best to honor the promises I make. The difference, perhaps, is that my life is not driven by personally selected goals as much as carried by the current of divine energy that flows through all creation. (That actually is a lot more practical than it sounds!) The first sometimes has a quality of anxiety on some level that seeks to control. The second often has a quality of trust that rests in faith. Life is more enjoyable, relaxed, responsive. And when challenges come, as they surely will, they can be met with resilience rather than struggle. 

It’s a relief to know that I don’t have to plan and control every step forward in my life. That was exhausting!

Perhaps you might examine the role that goals play in your life. What is the nature of your goals? What is your emotional relationship to them? You might not abandon all your goals, but maybe you might discover one or two that you could hold more flexibly. What would that be like? Maybe try it and see what happens. 

Acquiring wisdom is great but it is not the goal, applying it is. ~Idowu Koyenikan

Let Love Carry You

 

Let love carry you where it will

Along the currents of the vast universe

Countless marvels to behold

Do not struggle

Fear will not keep you from your destiny

But you will miss the splendor 

Of this precious life

The Trap of Being “Good”

 

Wanting to be good is a good thing. Right? I want to be a good person, a good mother, a good friend, and so on. And I want others to see me as good. I want my goodness reflected back to me in how others think of me, talk about me, and act towards me. 

Wanting to be good and to be seen as good can motivate us to conform our behavior to this ideal. And that seems like a desirable aspiration. 

It can, however, also result in avoidance of noticing thoughts or behaviors that do not meet this ideal of goodness. We can become defensive instead of receptive when someone reflects back to us something we’ve done or said that falls short. We rationalize, justify, explain – whatever it takes to deflect an honest assessment or genuine listening.

Or perhaps we go to the opposite extreme. If we acknowledge our imperfections, our identity as a good person is crushed, and we are lost in self judgment and condemnation. If I do something bad, then I must not be good. I am one or the other.

We are so invested in our identity of goodness, and fearful of not measuring up in our own eyes or the eyes of others, that we cannot accept ourselves as complex human beings with a full range of thoughts and behaviors. We lose any chance of being or knowing who we are, and with that loss, any chance of true connection with others. It’s like “my people will talk to your people,” but it’s really “my facade of goodness will interface with your facade of goodness.” 

This issue of being a good person comes up a lot in conversations about bias, especially about unconscious or implicit bias. Bias is often denied because someone is a “good person” and therefore cannot be biased, because any bias would make the person “bad.” That denial then effectively closes off any open dialogue or genuine self reflection about the inevitable existence of biases woven into our conscious and unconscious thoughts and behaviors.

Such denial also takes a lot of effort to maintain. It is exhausting to fragment ourselves, defending the parts that reinforce our goodness, and rejecting and hiding the parts that don’t. It tires me just thinking about it! 

As the saying goes, what we resist, persists. Our resistance to open and honest self inquiry doesn’t make us better people. It strengthens those aspects of ourselves we try to keep hidden. What if we could set aside our need to be good and our fear of being bad? What if we could allow ourselves to see the fullness and richness of who we are? Those parts locked up in the darkness, when brought to the light of acknowledgment with honesty and compassion, can be transformed with the love of understanding and forgiveness. 

It’s not as scary as it sounds. On the contrary, it is a relief. Not long ago, someone reflected back to me something I had done that was hurtful. Before, I would have gotten defensive and explained how the person had misinterpreted what had happened. I would have told my side of things, in such a way to show how my intentions had been good. In short, I would have tried to convince the other person that they were wrong to feel the way they did, and if they would just see things the way I did, all would be well. My “goodness” would be reaffirmed. 

I admit, that impulse was still there ... for a moment. But I was able to take a deep breath and listen. That listening helped me see the situation from the other person’s perspective, to acknowledge the pain they had experienced. While I couldn’t go back and change what I had done, I could accept responsibility for my own words and actions. I could accept this person’s experience without trying to invalidate it or fix it. Instead, I could learn from it. I could consider how I might have handled things better, how I might be able to take that awareness with me into future interactions. 

Goodness is not the issue. I was not a bad person because I had done something hurtful. I was not a good person because I listened. Honesty is the issue. Compassion is the issue. Compassion for the other person’s pain. Compassion for myself as a person who makes mistakes. And in that compassion is relief. 

When we release ourselves from the trap of goodness, we are free. And in that freedom, genuine relationship is possible. And that is good. 

Writing this post reminds me of one of my favorite children’s books – The Fire Cat, by Esther Averill. 

"Pickles, you are not a bad cat. You are not a good cat. You are good and bad. And bad and good. You are a mixed-up cat."

Aren’t we all?